


crossing

by nigiyakapepper



Series: Division 9 [1]
Category: Songbirds of Valnon - L. S. Baird
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Police, Gen, Superpowers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-28
Updated: 2017-07-28
Packaged: 2018-12-07 22:17:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11633058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nigiyakapepper/pseuds/nigiyakapepper
Summary: “Do you remember the 109 hostage incident back in 2005? Starling was there.”It was a strange case. No one had been hurt. The suspects were caught within the building; the hostages saved. They had all been unconscious—asleep…“His voice has,” Lairke breaks off with a laugh, no more than a huff through his nose and Lateran looks at him. “This is going to sound crazy but that kid’s voice, it does things.”





	crossing

**Author's Note:**

> this is a very unsubtle [Akaku Saku Koe](https://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=11498) AU. also 2007-era-esque / BL manga levels of self-indulgence. may be wildly inaccurate. in my defense, all I really wanted was to write some kinky stuff then the verse ran away from me...

“Welcome back to Tokyo,” Thryse says with a smirk and a back slap. There’s power behind it, and Lateran coughs a little.

“Did you get bored out in the sticks?” Lairke asks, cracking open his can of black coffee and taking a sip.

“Not really.” He’s come to like the mountains, the quiet neighborhoods, and empty roads. Nothing ever happens in Nagano. “Believe it or not, I had very little say in my transfer. Chief said I was a waste in the countryside.”

“Hah! He’d be right,” says Thryse. “It’s good to see you, man.”

Codename: Lateran is technically their superior, but he, Thryse, and Lairke have been friends since kindergarten. They grew up in the same sleepy, suburban neighborhood just shy of the heart of Adachi Ward. They played in a small orchestra up until junior high school, and dreamed of going to Geidai. But the infamous Blood Bath of Antigus the Terrible in ‘94 turned their tides toward the police force.

Lateran sheds his suit jacket, feeling exhaustion pile upon his shoulders despite having only sat through several meetings. Thryse smokes a cigarette before he smacks his thighs and stands up.

“Well, since you’re our new Captain, let’s introduce you to the crew, yeah?”

  
  
  


Division 9 of the CIB of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department is a laid back bunch, Lateran initially thinks. The office is more cluttered than what he’s gotten used to in Nagano. Documents and folders are piled high on desks and spilling over to their neighbors, wires trail from the ceiling to various laptops and equipment. There’s more than a few empty energy drink bottles rolling on the swept floor.

“Who’s the kid?” Lateran asks.

In the corner of the office, sitting on a wooden chair from some single-digit Heisei year is a teenager draped in black. His hoodie is black, his hands are stuffed into the pockets of his black pants, the beanie hiding unruly black hair is black. The only splashes of brightness to him is his stark white face mask, the sliver of pale face it leaves exposed, and piercing blue eyes.

“Codename: Starling,” Lairke says with some strange mix of pride and melancholy. “He’s a third year at Yamabuki and helps us out sometimes.”

“Helps out?” Lateran repeats as they watch Thryse walk up to him and greet him with a vicious hair ruffle (as much as a ruffle can be through a beanie) and Starling irritably swats him away. They talk with some officers Lateran’s met—Kite and Kestrel—before he’s handed some print outs, which he proceeds to read with great seriousness.

“Do you remember the 109 hostage incident back in 2005? He was there.”

It was a strange case. No one had been hurt. The suspects were caught within the building; the hostages saved. They had all been unconscious—asleep…

“His voice has,” Lairke breaks off with a laugh, no more than a huff through his nose and Lateran looks at him. “This is going to sound crazy but that kid’s voice, it does things.”

…Except for one. An elementary school student. Male.

“Hawk was on the field. He saw potential in him and after the investigation was resolved, he pretty much took him in.”

His name was…

“Chief Heron approved of it?” Lateran asks disbelievingly.

“Not at first, no,” Lairke says. They watch Starling ask questions to Thryse, who nods and points out things in his print. “But you know how Hawk is. He didn’t want to leave him…adrift, so to speak. Hawk wants him to join the force now, but the kid isn’t so sure.”

Lateran says nothing for a moment, then, “Hawk is being transferred.”

Lairke hums, looking thoughtful. “Starling’s file is on your desk. You’re going to be the one in charge of him now.”

The roads in Nagano are silent and empty, even on Sundays. Lateran smirks. “I’ve got my work cut out for me, don’t I?”

  
  
  


Starling is quiet. He gives one word answers, muffled by his mask.

Thryse had briefed them both on an on-going case (“I know you just transferred but—”). Fieldwork isn’t something Lateran has done since his junior years, but Division 9 prides themselves on their hands-on approach.

They’re patrolling downtown Ikebukuro in casual attire. Peppered among the lively buildings are empty ones, neatly awaiting demolition. Their leads have led them to investigate there.

“How is school?”

Starling shoots him a look that clearly spells his annoyance at the childish question. Lateran laughs a little but doesn’t relent.

“'S fine.”

“Got any subjects you like?”

“No.”

“Any hobbies?”

“No.”

“Girlfriends?”

“ _No._ ”

“Siblings?”

“I thought you read my file,” Starling’s tone is accusatory.

“Oh, I did.” The kid lives with his aunt, uncle, and cousin. “But what’s the fun of getting to know you through a piece of paper?”

He hears the boy sigh.

“Is investigating fun?” Lateran asks.

Starling merely shrugs, but there’s a shine to his blue eyes that tells him the answer is complicated. Lateran lets his questions drop. There’s movement in the alleyway next to an abandoned four-story building that has his senses on high alert. Beside him, Starling tenses.

_”Stakeout says there hasn’t been anyone on the premises for three days, but a couple of them will go back for the goods today. Gull says to capture the men for questioning. They’ll hopefully lead to whoever’s pulling the strings behind this drug trade…”_

Despite the building’s decrepitude, one of the inconspicuous back entrances gives way without much sound. A quick check of the door’s rusting hinges shows it's recently been oiled. Lateran doesn’t know how many people have arrived on the premises. There isn’t any use to being noisy.

_“Just the two of us?”_

__

__

_”Me ‘n Kite are taking Icchome. Lairke and Kestrel will be at Nichome. The only one holding down the fort today Nick and he’s grumpy about it. But if it weren’t for his leg… At any rate, Starling knows what to do. Just,” Thryse runs a hand through his hair and sighs. “Don’t let him be too reckless. Capture of the men and confiscation of goods is top priority.”_

They track footsteps in the dust, spaces possibly cleared for people to walk on. It’s still difficult when the building has been mostly swept. A thorough search of the first floor reveals only a couple of meticulously hidden pouches of cocaine. Footsteps overhead tell them they’re too late; the urgent tap-tappings hint their cover’s been blown.

“They’re planning to make a quick get away,” Lateran whispers, glancing at the direction of what sounds like a vehicle waiting beyond shuttered windows. Starling nods and without preamble, hoists himself up the broken staircase leading to the second floor and out of sight.

Lateran had no time to be startled. He runs toward another set of stairs leading to the next floor, hoping it isn’t half gone because he isn’t prepared enough to clamber over stones. He quietly disarms a lookout by the stairwell, but makes more noise than he’d like when knocking out two accomplices in the middle of gathering goods.

Then it happens.

Lateran watches Starling swiftly knockout another man coming out of a room across the hall, but the boy has his back turned. There’s a man behind him with a sledgehammer held high and ready to strike. Lateran raises his gun before he can even think. Starling sees his movement, sees _past_ him, and then there’s fear is his blue eyes.

“ _Don’t move!_ ”

Lateran’s body locks up before his mind can process what’s happening. Why can’t he move? He can’t _not_ move. Is there someone behind him too? Starling’s going to be bludgeoned any second—

“Sleep.”

Absurdly, he feels his mind slow and his vision blur. His muscles turn to water. He can’t be sleepy, that’s ridiculous; Starling's going to be, Starling is—

—the boy is okay. He has his mask off, and he’s speaking…

_Oh._

  
  
  


Lateran is roused by someone tapping his cheek and calling him his real name.

“Wh—?”

“You’re back!” says Lairke with a breathless smile. Around them is a flurry of activity. Police—Divisions 1 and 3—are moving about, confiscating several dirty pouches of drugs, and arresting several men who look as dazed as he feels.

“What happened?” he asks.

“Seems you were caught in the crossfire,” Thryse says with a wink. Beside him is Starling, looking apologetic, or at least what Lateran can see of his face. His mask is on again.

“I’m sorry, Sir Lateran,” he says, voice quiet and muffled. “The only way for me to wake someone up is to say their full name.”

Lateran feels the ghosts of sensations—the freezing, the sleepiness. Realization doesn’t so much as smack him as creeps upon his shoulder, waiting patiently to be acknowledged. It’s laced with the smallest hint of fear. “Don’t worry about it. And just call me Lateran. Sir is…I’m only twenty-nine.”

Starling’s eyes crinkle, as if in a smile. “Wouldn’t have guessed.”

  
  
  


“I can see now why Hawk wanted to keep tabs on him,” Lateran tells Lairke as they watch the interrogation behind the privacy of a one-way window. Much of the past couple of days have been devoted to wrapping up the case—tracking down stragglers, planning out the possible network of the group in order to reveal the mastermind, interrogating suspect after suspect.

They’ve drafted strategic questions under Lateran’s guidance. Kestrel is thoroughly interrogating a man with them. Starling is also in the room, to be convincing when the man becomes particularly stubborn.

“If he’s influenced to misuse it, or runs away with abusing it, the results would be terrifying.”

Lairke nods. “He isn’t a bad kid. His aunt and uncle treat him well. He adores his cousin. He’s got friends, it’s just…”

Lateran understands somewhat. There’s a loneliness to Starling that love and companionship cannot banish, only ease.

“And Hawk’s asked him to join the force?”

“Only too many times.”

“What did Starling say?”

Lairke gives his old friend a withering, knowing smirk. “I don’t know, Ver. Why don’t you talk to him?”

  
  
  


And Lateran does.

It’s difficult at first. They don’t talk about things outside of work. When Starling isn’t at the office, he’s at school, and Lateran can’t think of a reason to hang out with him that won’t be taken as slightly creepy.

There _are_ moments, though: when the investigation team makes a breakthrough on a case they’re working on and Lateran catches Starling staring at him with what he’d like to think is awe (then Thryse kisses him soundly on his cheek and yells, “You were _so_ wasted in the sticks!”), when he stays behind to finish reports and Starling is with him, endlessly scrolling through Twitter or listening to music, or eventually doing homework until Lateran tells him to go home, when they're out on a mission and Lateran instinctively shields Starling against whoever they’re chasing, only to belatedly realize the boy is well equipped to protect himself as their targets drop unconscious with only one half-spoken, half-sung command…

…and Starling is staring at him with an expression carefully pensive as it is unreadable.

“Why are you an inspector?” he asks one night, when Lateran had been too focused on work to notice Starling had fallen asleep and it had become too late to let him go home by himself.

They’re driving to Starling’s house. Lateran grips the steering wheel tighter than he means to. Starling doesn’t miss the movement.

“It’s a long story,” he says with an apologetic laugh.

“Give me a short version.”

Lateran tries to. It’s not as if he’ll be able to forget that day, coming home from school with Thryse and Lairke, finding the front door unlocked, seeing the blood of his sister and his parents splattered across the living room, on the kitchen walls in the flashy style of Antigus, the serial killer.

It’s not as if he’ll be able to forget not knowing what to feel—revenge, loss, helplessness, desperation, a terrible, terrible anger, and an even more terrible grief. He cried until he lost his voice. He was terrified of going to school. He was terrified of going home. He took to eating dinner in front of the TV for months, following the investigation of the case.

“Superintendent Grayce had been leading it,” Lateran says, feeling odd and strangely vulnerable at the lack of emotion he had braced himself to feel. “When they finally caught him, I just…” He swallows. “I remember my first thought was how it’d be cool if I broke an investigation like that.”

He glances at Starling and smirks a little ruefully at the open surprise in the boy's eyes before returning his gaze to the road.

“I knew it wouldn’t bring my sister back, or my parents…but if I helped criminals get caught, if I helped people get closure. That’s...that’d help with the healing.”

“Bullshit.”

Lateran laughs. “You don’t believe me?”

“No one thinks like that. Jesus, how are you a person?”

He doesn’t know how to answer that. Starling shifts in his seat beside him, removing his shoe to draw up his knee to his chin. The seatbelt bites into his shoulder as he hunches over. “My cousin loves to sing, y’know?”

_They’ve hiked to the highest point they know in the city, which admittedly isn’t very high, but they’re surrounded by green and they’re at some sort of forgotten bus shed overlooking a spectacular view of the cityscape, so it’ll do. There’s no one to hear them, save for the wood of the old temple that rises behind them. The nearest residents are miles below their feet._

__

__

_They sing._

_They sing their hearts out, voices blending and harmonizing like birds finally freed from a cage, and Eothan thinks “it’s okay, it’s finally safe.” He sings without a care in the world, until he sees Willim, eyes blown wide and still singing, so drawn up and immersed by song to notice he’s stepping off the cliff. Eothan screams—_

“It’s good to feel useful,” Starling says.

Something twists in Lateran’s heart. He remembers what he’s heard from the other members of Division 9: Kestrel resting his head in his arms after Starling leaves the interrogation room (“Just give me a minute,” he sounds nauseated. “I’m still not used to his voice”), Hawk talking about Starling’s first few missions with him (“Hey Hawk, tell me what you want. I can make it happen,” Starling had told him with a manic grin), Starling disappearing for a heart-stopping two weeks after encountering a gang who’d heard of the Division’s methods and engaged the police while wearing earphones, Starling yelling at Thryse in the delirium of a bad head cold, _“What good am I without this?!”_

“There are plenty of other ways to be useful,” Lateran doesn’t know why he says it, whether it’s to fill the silence or something else he can’t quite decide. Maybe he wants to understand the gap Starling has between helping out the investigation bureau for so long and his indecision over joining. Maybe he subtly wants to nudge Starling into pursuing his own interests, as little as Lateran knows of them.

Starling fixes him with a wry smile. “I could say the same thing to you.”

And with a burgeoning, helpless sort of fondness, Lateran watches as Starling opens the door to his humble, two-story home, is greeted by his cousin—shorter, younger—and promptly scolded for getting home so late before being hugged tightly around the middle.

  
  
  


The evening is made darker with rain. Flashing blue and red lights from the parked police cars give the scene a crime show feel. Starling sits in the open back of an ambulance. He has his mask off and is singing softly. The constant pour makes him no more audible to more than the three children sitting beside him, swathed in blue blankets to keep from the chill. They’re falling asleep.

“How are they?” Lateran asks, taking care to keep his voice low. He hands Starling a juice box.

He takes it, pops the straw in and takes a sip. “They’ve just escaped being drugged and kidnapped for four days. What do you think?”

Starling hasn’t put his mask back on. Lateran suppresses the shiver that shoots up his spine and explodes at the base of his skull, tingling distractingly in his brain from the full force of hearing his voice. “They look calm.”

“Only because I made them sleep. Nothing’s going to change about what they went through when they wake up.”

“No,” Lateran says as he looks at one child sprawled comfortably across Starling’s lap as if it were their own bed. “But even the smallest bit of comfort will go a long way in helping them recover.”

“They’ll need professional help, not my singing.”

“And they will get it. But for now, your comfort has done them plenty enough.”

It’s not often that Lateran sees Starling’s face, and is surprised with how open it can be. The boy fixes him with a pained sort of look as though he is unsure whether or not Lateran genuinely means what he says or is just trying to assuage his insecurities with platitudes.

“My comfort,” Starling repeats, and Lateran smiles.

“You could be good with kids, y’know.”

He smiles wider when Starling makes a noise of disgust and finishes the rest of his juice with a pouty, pensive sort of silence.

  
  
  


“Starling’s homeroom teacher was one the phone. She thought she’d give a call. The kid finally turned in his Career Path Form today.”

It’s a Thursday morning and Division 9 is breathing easy for the first time in a couple of months. Lateran may not have spent as long a time working with Starling as the other officers but he’s just as invested in his well-being. They all tune in at Thryse’s statement.

“What did he put in?” Kite asks.

“Psychology at TMU—”

“TMU?! Is the kid actually a genius?!”

“Sssh!”

“—and the MPD Academy.”

There’s various hums and ‘heeeh’s at this. Lateran himself hides as small smile as he checks his phone to see the latest text Starling has sent him.

It’s a picture from their school festival—Starling and his friends, Pytir and Rey, are donned in archaic uniforms from the cheering event. They’re grinning boyishly at the camera, as if the future is far yet, and there are plenty more carefree days ahead.

**END**


End file.
